The brand they created – at first against tremendous odds and restrictive norms – injected freshness into the market and in retail spaces through its cutting-edge marketing strategy and empathetic advertising. Not only did the new watchmakers on the block transform watches from being utilitarian objects to fashion statements, but it also systematically ventured into areas untapped by corporate entities with its brands Titan, Tanishq, Titan Eyeplus, Skinn and Taneira, and established itself as a winner across multiple verticals. Titan: Inside India’s Most Successful Consumer Brand takes readers from boardrooms to back rooms to reveal how a quintessential Indian brand from the house of the Tatas, not known till then for its success in the consumer goods market, reached such remarkable heights. It is a tale of innovation and fortitude, of thinking outside the box and staying the course, of obsession with detail and the courage to acknowledge failure. A story that will inspire every reader, here is the inside account of what continues to make Titan tick.

    However, there was no factory. It was a company registered in name only. Apollo Tyres. Thanks to Onkar Singh Kanwar, Raunaq’s eldest son, Apollo is today one of India’s most successful automotive companies with a turnover in excess of $2 billion and factories across India and in Europe.This is the story, never told before, of how Onkar Singh Kanwar built Apollo from scratch and took it to the world stage. To do it, he had to combat strikes and union intimidation, the restrictions of the Licence Raj, politically motivated nationalisation, and near bankruptcy.As if that was not enough, he also had to endure and survive a traumatic falling-out with the father he so admired. Never before has Onkar Kanwar spoken so openly or movingly about the father he still reveres and his regrets that life should have been so different from what he would have liked it to be.The Man Behind the Wheel recounts these dramatic events in compelling detail as Onkar Kanwar follows his steadfast vision to build not just a company, but also an industrial institution. For the first time Onkar Kanwar’s closest friends and colleagues have spoken about the triumphs and the setbacks that have shaped both his and the company’s life and times. His wife and family share their personal insights of the man who is at the hub and heart of their world and how his values as a Sikh, father, brother and husband have moulded him as an entrepreneur.The Man Behind the Wheel is the insightful and exciting story of a highly successful company and its creator as he takes us on a journey through his early days in the US of the 1960s, importing and exporting in the pre-boom Middle East, to building factories in Vadodara and Chennai, and further expansion to the Netherlands and Hungary with stop-offs in China and a highly charged courtroom battle in the United States.But tellingly, it is also the story of fathers and sons and of family dynasties and responsibilities played out against the backdrop of India’s first seventy years since Independence.

    Krishnamachari, who later became a Union minister and held the portfolios of finance, industry and commerce for close to fifteen years.In this book, the current chairman T.T. Jagannathan, along with Sandhya Mendonca, takes us through the journey of this extraordinary company which fought off bankruptcy and rose like a phoenix to become a highly profitable, successful entity.What makes this story all the more startling is that T.T. Jagannathan is an accidental and reluctant businessman. He came into the profession very unexpectedly, and without any preparation, with neither an MBA nor having ever worked in the family business before having its very survival entrusted to him.Like a phoenix, the Group and its constituent companies, have risen from the ashes, many times over, to stand tall and proud. This is the story of a journey that began with early success and experienced catastrophic disasters, and set about turning its fortunes around in stunning comebacks, time and again.With invaluable business lessons, decades of experience and innovation distilled in these pages, Disrupt and Conquer is a must-read for aspiring entrepreneurs, executives and business leaders.

    India is set for seismic changes to day-to-day banking over the next few years and banks who don’t commit to fully re-engineering their practice around becoming a technology company that delivers real-time, contextual banking experiences will wither on the vine. HDFC Bank has made a solid start on this journey, but the final chapter has not yet been written.” BRETT KING, Founder, Moven and bestselling author of Bank 4.0 The seeds of change were sown in September 2014, when HDFC Bank MD Aditya Puri went to Silicon Valley to meet the brightest tech minds in the world. By the time he got back, he knew exactly what needed to be done. It was time for a revolution. Instead of waiting to be disrupted by fintech companies, HDFC Bank went all out to disrupt itself, recasting its role and scope on a scale that has never been attempted before. In one of the biggest transformations ever undertaken in any business, HDFC Bank wants to become a platform facilitating a financial experience. Tamal Bandyopadhyay chronicles HDFC Bank’s own digital disruption exercise through the very people who drove it, narrating a story that’s as compelling as unique in India’s financial system. With his keen eye for detail, deep knowledge of banking and unparalleled storytelling ability, Bandyopadhyay recounts the journey of India’s most valued lender from a life cycle bank to a lifestyle bank.

    

    And to do this as a public sector company, having to follow all governmental systems and procedures and having to please both its masters in the government and Suzuki Motor Corporation.However, the Maruti project succeeded and in ways that were unimaginable in 1983. the car revolutionized the industry and put a county on wheels. Suddenly, ordinary middle-class men and women could aspire to own a reliable, economical and modern car and the steep sales target were easily met. 26 years later, the company, now free of government controls and facing competition from the world's major manufacturers who have entered the Indian market,still leads the way. Not only that, cars made by Maruti can be seen in all continents.By any yardstick, it is an incredible story, involving grit, management skill and entrepreneurship of a high order. R. C. Bhargava, who was at the helm of the company and is currently its chairman, co-writing with senior journalist and author Seetha, shows how it was done in this riveting account of a landmark achievement.

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    Years later, with the launch of Pantaloons, Big Bazaar, Food Bazaar, Central and many more retail formats, he redefined the retailing business in India. Incidentally, Kishore Biyani’s objective is to capture every rupee in the wallet of every Indian consumer, wherever they are - an investment banker living in a south Mumbai locality or a farmer in Sangli. As large business houses enter the retail space, Kishore Biyani is not just concentrating on retail but aiming to capture the entire Indian consumption space. From building shopping malls, developing consumer brands to selling insurance, he is getting into every business where a customer spends her money.

    In Odyssey of Courage, Khorakiwala narrates a saga of Indian enterprise, talent and creativity.Hailing from Palanpur, Gujarat, the Khorakiwalas arrived in Bombay in 1896 to build one of the city’s iconic retail chain stores—Akbarallys. Opting to strike out on his own, Khorakiwala entered the pharmaceutical business in 1967. Despite fierce competition at home and abroad, Wockhardt has emerged as a global firm with subsidiaries in the US and Europe. The pharma giant is now ready to launch an antibiotics ‘super drug’ that will mark a new stage in the evolution of the Indian pharmaceutical industry.Odyssey of Courage is more than just the story of Wockhardt. It offers invaluable insights into the making of a knowledge-based Indian multinational. Policymakers, business executives, students of management and public policy will relate to Khorakiwala’s experiences in ‘learning by doing’, taking risks and handling crises, and in managing change—within the industry, within India’s policy environment, and within the world of global pharma.

    Told rivetingly by his son, Anil Rai Gupta, this is the account of how QRG, as he was fondly known, braved poverty, ill health, competition, corruption and bureaucracy to turn his dreams into reality.Havells faced stiff competition from companies that couldn’t tolerate a modest trader challenging them. Despite legal battles, family feuds and severe shortage of funds, QRG never gave up. During his last years, Havells acquired German giant Sylvania which was twice its size. When Sylvania’s losses pushed Havells to the brink, QRG fearlessly decided to keep the company nonetheless. It was under his tutelage that Anil Rai Gupta, present chairman of Havells, turned Sylvania around. QRG’s life is proof of the adage ‘Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve’.

    

    Yet the projects he envisioned laid the foundation for the nation's development once it became independent. More extraordinary still, these institutions continue to set the pace for others in their respective areas. For, among his many achievements are the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, which has groomed some of the country's best scientists, the Tata Steel plant in Jamshedpur, which marked the country's transition from trading to manufacturing, his pioneering hydro-electric project, and the Taj Mahal hotel in Mumbai, one of the finest in the world. In these as in other projects he undertook, Jamsetji revealed the unerring instinct of a man who knew what it would take to restore the pride of a subjugated nation and help it prepare for a place among the leading nations of the world once it came into its own. The scale of the projects required abilities of a high order. In some cases it was sheer perseverance that paid off "as with finding a suitable site for the steel project. In others, such as the Indian Institute of Science, it was his exceptional persuasive skills and patience that finally got him the approval of a reluctant viceroy, Lord Curzon. In For the Love of India, R.M. Lala has drawn upon fresh material from the India Office Library in London and other archives, as also Jamsetji's letters, to portray the man and his age. It is an absorbing account that makes clear how remarkable Jamsetji's achievement truly was, and why, even now, one hundred years after his death, he seems like a man well ahead of the times.

    He had gambled and won, but his volatility and reluctance to pay his debts were making him enemies. He lived the high life as only a young man would, buying luxury homes, private jets, sports cars and football teams, and splurging massively to build a horseracing empire.But Tinkler’s dreams had extended beyond even his resources, and his business model worked only in a rising market. When coal prices slumped in 2012, Tinkler had no cash flow to service his massive borrowings and no allies to help him recover. Within months he was trying desperately to stave off his creditors, large and small, and fighting to save his businesses and his fortune.In this impressive biography, leading business writer Paddy Manning tells the story of Tinkler’s meteoric rise to wealth, and captures the drama of his equally rapid downfall.‘Some might see it as a handbook on how to go from broke to billionaire in a matter of years … Others might see it as a morality tale about the canker at the heart of the consumerist, aspirational politics peddled by our leaders for the past few decades.’ —Sydney Morning Herald‘Paddy Manning’s Boganaire: The Rise and Fall of Nathan Tinkler is a rollicking tale, which works on our sense of schadenfreude.’ —Chloe Hooper, the Monthly‘Boganaire is much more than a book for readers of business literature. It provides an insight into a bigger and more important subject than Nathan Tinkler: it shows how the easy prosperity from resource riches might be changing our culture and values for the worse.’ — the Australian‘The richly detailed book lays Tinkler’s life bare, from his early days working in Newcastle’s coal mines through to his triumphant deals with Macarthur Coal and Whitehaven, and his spectacular fall from grace.’ —BRWPaddy Manning is one of Australia’s most respected journalists, with fifteen years’ experience including a decade on the business desks of the Sydney Morning Herald, the Australian Financial Review and the Australian – a period in which he was highly commended in the business category of the Walkley Awards and was a three-time category winner in the prestigious Citigroup Journalism Awards for Excellence. His first book, What the Frack: everything you need to know about coal seam gas, was published in 2012.

    Fast-forward a century and the Haldiram’s empire has revenue much greater than that of McDonald’s and Domino’s combined.In Bhujia Barons, Pavitra Kumar tells the riveting story of the Agarwal family in its entirety—a feat never managed before. It begins in dusty, benign Bikaner and traces the rise and rise of this home-grown label, now one of the most-recognized Indian brands in the world.The Haldiram’s story is not an average business story—it’s chock-full of family drama, with court cases, jealousy-fuelled regional expansion, a decades-old trademark battle, and a closely guarded family secret of the famous bhujia. Fast-paced and captivating, this book provides a delicious look into family business dynamics and the Indian way of doing business.

    Today, the homegrown Marico is a leading international FMCG giant which recorded an annual turnover of over Rs 8000 crore last year. Their products, like Parachute, Nihar Naturals, Saffola, Set Wet, Livon and Mediker, are market leaders in their categories. This is the story of grit, gumption and growth, and of the core values of trust, transparency and innovation which have brought the company to its current stature. Co-authored by leading management thinker and guru Ram Charan, Harsh Realities is a much-awaited business book by an innovative and clear-headed leader who built a highly professional, competitive business from the ground up.